Good review! My thoughts on this largely mirrored yours: a lot of build-up, generally quite derivative story and world-building, but the characters were generally winsome and the story was well-plotted.
I feel like the friendship only works because you get all that time with them in the beginning. For me the early part of the book was like fantasy comfort food. That said, the early portions of this book really mirror Malice by John Gwynne. Now for me I considered this a good thing. Cahill did it exceptionally well. But In Of Blood and Fire and in Malice you have the main character whose name starts with a C, they use sword forms to clear their minds and they are practicing exceptionally hard for their up-coming fantasy bar mitzvahs, with the assistance of a father who knows more than they let on, oh and they have a fiercely independent sister, they have their pet wolf, their best friend and the upcoming major town fair/event during which they encounter their enemy who will go on to join up with the bad guys. They are great with a sword, but not amazing with the bow- not to fear their best friend is a sniper with the bow. And despite this it felt different enough and well enough for me to really enjoy it.
I have not read Malice yet but I had no idea how closely tied their beginnings were! I am glad though you still enjoyed both stories. I really am enjoying the Bound and Broken series, and Malice is pretty high up on my TBR, I just need to finally start it haha
The only problem that I had with any of the books from this series were the names of the characters and the more books you read the more characters he introduces there are so many other than that they were all great books get rid of war and ruin yet but I plan on in the future
I agree, there were so many characters with names just slightly different from each other, like Dayne, Dann and Daymon--if I read too quickly I get them all mixed up :)
Good review. I didn't get that age thing you cited and I don't think the MC sounded like a young child. I got more Dragonriders of Pern vibes than Eragon (which clearly influenced Eragon similar to how LOTR was influenced by Welsh and Celtic legends). Oh yeah, nice T-shirt.
Good review! My thoughts on this largely mirrored yours: a lot of build-up, generally quite derivative story and world-building, but the characters were generally winsome and the story was well-plotted.
I feel like the friendship only works because you get all that time with them in the beginning. For me the early part of the book was like fantasy comfort food. That said, the early portions of this book really mirror Malice by John Gwynne. Now for me I considered this a good thing. Cahill did it exceptionally well. But In Of Blood and Fire and in Malice you have the main character whose name starts with a C, they use sword forms to clear their minds and they are practicing exceptionally hard for their up-coming fantasy bar mitzvahs, with the assistance of a father who knows more than they let on, oh and they have a fiercely independent sister, they have their pet wolf, their best friend and the upcoming major town fair/event during which they encounter their enemy who will go on to join up with the bad guys. They are great with a sword, but not amazing with the bow- not to fear their best friend is a sniper with the bow. And despite this it felt different enough and well enough for me to really enjoy it.
I have not read Malice yet but I had no idea how closely tied their beginnings were! I am glad though you still enjoyed both stories. I really am enjoying the Bound and Broken series, and Malice is pretty high up on my TBR, I just need to finally start it haha
The only problem that I had with any of the books from this series were the names of the characters and the more books you read the more characters he introduces there are so many other than that they were all great books get rid of war and ruin yet but I plan on in the future
I agree, there were so many characters with names just slightly different from each other, like Dayne, Dann and Daymon--if I read too quickly I get them all mixed up :)
Good review. I didn't get that age thing you cited and I don't think the MC sounded like a young child. I got more Dragonriders of Pern vibes than Eragon (which clearly influenced Eragon similar to how LOTR was influenced by Welsh and Celtic legends). Oh yeah, nice T-shirt.
haha thank you! And I haven't read Dragonriders of Pern, if it is similar to this series, I'll definitely be checking it out.
@@nicolesbookcorner The themes are but the execution is very different.
Dude … so many light spoilers in here!